Exiles Among You

Her body is a difficult sister, and she loves her,
and hides her somewhere in herself safe from harm.
She's barely coasting into a paycheque, stuck on empty.
Her blue eyes frozen green in the low-lit ATM.
I need a way to measure the distance.
I need a way to say why,
out of breath or out of key, her voice resonated in me.
Her body is a difficult sister, and she loves her,
and hides her somewhere in herself safe from harm.
Her night shift is over,
she's writing you a postcard to say that she's okay
and it's raining there again.
My fury's rising faster than bus-fares.
Could someone clarify why there's no structured narrative?
No neat story-line to explain?
Wish on everything.
Pray that she remains proud and strange and so hopelessly hopeful.
(Wishes and prayers are the way that we leave the lonely alone
and push the wounded away).
She shoplifts some Christmas gifts,
and a bracelet for herself, and considers phoning home.
Has some quarters in her hand.
But she sits down on the sidewalk and bites her bottom lip,
and spends the afternoon willing traffic-lights to change.